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How I visualize my blog stats to comprehend them

Yesterday I posted about the time I celebrated 500 followers. Today it is two years exactly since it was posted and I remember it like it was yesterday. I was delighted to have received this news and to try to visualize 500 people reading my posts was pretty cool even if a little difficult to do. But to visualize it makes it more real to me. On a screen full of text and numbers it can be easy to disregard such numbers. WordPress alone has over 75,000,000 sites according to online sources, I mean how are we supposed to comprehend such a number!?

I remember some of the very first followers I ever had. You know who you are, I still talk to some of you every day and it is fantastic. When we are talking numbers in the tens it is much easier to take in, however fun to think about. What I sometimes imagined was sitting on my computer at home and having ten people listening and watching me as I chatted away and typed up a post. I mean that is pretty nerve-racking to have ten people listen to you. I hated it during presentations in school and even as an adult in meetings. Presenting to an audience is not my thing.

So yes, imagine ten people listening to you read your blog posts out loud in your home, suddenly it doesn’t seem like a small number anymore.

I visualize everything. The views, the visitor numbers, anything that turns a number into a picture to help me analyse what’s going on. And before you know it, all that hardcore blogging pays off and you have 500 followers looking forward to each post. Amazing. I’ll add here what I posted in the link above when this notification from WordPress came my way back in 2017. It certainly shows how significant this number is.

Again, thanks to moth dad over on Twitter to help with this visual. Now I admit, we have to space everyone out a mile to get the distance, but 500 is still a very large number. It doesn’t seem so with the ridiculous follower numbers we see some people have on Instagram, however some people are just freaks. I mean another way I think of how significant 500 is, is this. Imagine you were sentenced to 500 days in prison, or told it would take 500 days for your WiFi to start working again. Or if 500 wasps were heading to your home or your team lost by 500 points. All will ensure sheer turmoil, and this gives me a nice little boost for the day.

But anyway, back to the map. If you have 500 followers, this is how far they would stretch if a mile apart. Supposing Brexit didn’t cause a problem at the border that is. If you don’t quite have that number of followers yet that’s cool, as 500 views works too and is a nice number to aim for moving forward.

My best month ever views-wise was January 2018. I hit 10,877 views for the month, visitor numbers were half this. But lets go with the 10,877, you know it’s our blog so we can make those kinds of decisions. We’re now talking about a small town population here. One with at least five pubs, there’s always one you just don’t go into as an outsider if you want to come out alive. One of those sized towns. Instead of seeing a number I see a thriving community, I see actual people all doing their own thing and living their own lives. Imagine that, a small town following what you do online and talking about it in the local fish and chip shop as they wrap the chips in the newspaper with your name as a headline.

I am providing the stereotypical British village/town visual for everyone, but I am sure you have figured that out by now. Feel free to change this for your local village setting.

And then, lets increase the statistics timeframe to one year. In that same year of 2018, I totalled 57,140 views and 23,961 visitors. But again lets go for the larger number. Why not? It gives me an added boost to see the glass half full. Now lets imagine we are walking up the steps of a football stadium and step out to this view…

This is the Vicente Calderón, a 54,907 seater stadium in Madrid. If these blog views were people, this venue would hit full capacity. Think of the noise this amount of people would make. The atmosphere and the buzz. Amazing. Now I know none of us are going to be sitting in the centre circle of such a venue with such a crowd simultaneously, that’s not how blogging works. But I just wanted to share how I visualize the numbers over the years. From a room full of people to a stadium full of people. Wherever you are on the scale, keep moving forward and keep watching your blog and community grow. My community is amazing and I have been very lucky to meet and talk to so many cool and interesting people through this site.

I hope this was helpful, even if a little weird, hopefully both. But we need weird or we are doomed.

Well my post was aiming to make any kind of following look and feel awesome, as someone (whether it is only one person or a group) appreciating our work is great. Don’t forget, this is a hobby for most of us, so having someone appreciate what we do outside of our normal working routine is amazing!

You have a very interesting way of visualizing blog stats. One way I’ve thought of my subscriber count was by comparing it to the number of students I teach per day–about 130. That number had always felt overwhelming to me, but I guess I’m now getting used to teaching 6 classes of 20-30 students. Anything over that number blows my mind.

I like how you visualise your stats. If WordPress Discover blog should visualise their followers like this, that means they’ve got a (small) country following them! How cool is that? It’s nice to have a large following, especially when you have an engaging community.

Since my followers are very few, I don’t visualise them much. But maybe I’ll start doing that the moment I hit the 500 followers mark.

That is right! I only click on the discover button once in a blue moon, although I don’t quite understand who the discover people are exactly and how they amassed so many followers they are doing an incredible job xD

Imagine having a following larger than some countries?! Madness.

I love having a community to talk to every day. And don’t start at 500, start now! It is awesome to have followers following you, feel that good feeling and send that feel good spirit out there in your posts. Your blog will soar like an eagle I am sure!!

Wow, what a great post⭐️I visualiz myself and do meditate. I have faith in this and whish and dream about my blog will getting something good and come out there… I’m a new blogger,almost a year now. I don’t have a lot of followers, but if I get your example I can do it⭐️ Thank you for sharing and I can read it, you are amazing🌸
Have a nice day and must it be filled with joy🦋

You are a newbie! And I didn’t engage much when I was a year old on my blog, so good on you for getting out there and chatting with other bloggers. You are doing the right thing much earlier than I did!

Very true Sam, when we look on the paper couple tens or hundreds of people may not seems so much but in real life all those people reading your blog it is a lot. As you said imagine being in front of a large group reading your blog or even in front of a full stadium. Seems scary but is the way to success. Maybe in the future it will be the equivalent of reading the blog in front of a national television. Every single person reading our blogs are unique and every other person joining in, is the road of success.

I love the way you’ve visualised your successes. As a relative newcomer I’m at 35 followers and I’m grateful for every new follower. For me it’s an illustration, or evidence, there are some people out ‘there’ who are interested in what I’m producing. Onwards and uowards to 50, 500, 5000..

Love this, it’s definitely cool to think about when you start visualising the numbers!
On a seperate note, very jealous you got to visit the Vicente Calderon (if your photo?). I didn’t realise they were knocking it down until quite late so didn’t get the chance to actually see a game there.

Oh no they knocked it down?! I had no idea! My photos in this post were from Unsplash, a website I highly recommend as all images are professional and free to use 🙂 I linked in the post to each photographer and never claim to be my own, but every now and then I love to use a photo that may fit my post better than my own photographs 🙂

No worries 🙂 And sorry I don’t quite understand, if you are referring to what hobbies I have writing is probably the main one right now, as well as amateur photography. But please correct me if I am wrong about what you meant!

Fantastic! I did the same thing like you, visualizing my stats to see which countries ever visited my blog…though it’s not as much as your views & followers ;).
It’s just so exciting to know that my blog already reached those far away places, and I make a wish that someday I can travel to all of them…

It’s interesting to visualize blog stats! I also dislike making presentation in front of people. But blogging is fantastic! Thanks to blogging, I can share information and make friends from all over the world. It’s such a fun journey online.

I was travelling down viewing the beauty of stream of unending harvest of paddy lands in the low lands ; until I reach to the coolar higher mountain tops ,where I fell in love with a beautiful village and that of the land scape, that no photographer could explore and explain. The folks spoke like angels , walked like angels. looked like angels. they treated me so well,on the last day I fell down on their feet to say the last welcome.